Samantha Azzopardi being returned to Australia by Irish authorities

SAMANTHA Azzopardi is being returned to Australia after a psychiatrist found she wasn't so ill that she could be detained under Ireland's Mental Health Act.

Kieran Campbell with AAP

News Corp Australia NetworkNovember 8, 20137:58pm

Authorities in Dublin are yet to decide the fate of Australian Samantha Azzopardi who they initially mistook for a trafficked teen.Source:Supplied

A 25-YEAR-OLD woman mysteriously found in Dublin a month ago is being returned to Australia.

Samantha Azzopardi is heading home after a psychiatrist found she wasn't suffering from a mental disorder that would enable her to be detained any longer in Ireland.

"Police can confirm that Samantha Azzopardi is this evening being returned to her native Australia," an Irish police spokesman said in a statement on Thursday night (Friday morning AEDT).

"In consultation with all of the relevant authorities An Garda Siochana have facilitated Samantha Azzopardi's repatriation with a view to reuniting her with her family and the authorities in Australia."

It's understood Ms Azzopardi was escorted by police when she was taken from the children's hospital where she'd been staying to Dublin airport. Her flight left around 5.30pm, local time.

Since being identified earlier this week after a worldwide search, it's been revealed Ms Azzopardi is known to Australian police, has used false identities and has previously been convicted on multiple deception charges.

It was initially feared she was a teenage victim of human trafficking after she was found in a distressed state on a Dublin street on October 10.

Ireland's High Court earlier on Thursday heard Ms Azzopardi was suffering from a condition that made her "vulnerable" but wasn't so ill she should be detained under the country's Mental Health Act.

An order from the court which had meant Ms Azzopardi couldn't be removed from care lapsed just before midday and hours later police announced she was being flown home.

Justice George Birmingham said the twists in the case had come "as a shock to everybody and as a surprise".

"But the case has now run its course," he said during the brief High Court hearing on Thursday.

Gerard O'Brien, a lawyer for the guardian appointed when it was thought Ms Azzopardi was a teenager, told reporters outside court: "She is not detainable under the Mental Health Act ... the legal proceedings are at an end."

It was Dr Kelly's view that Ms Azzopardi was not suffering from a disorder that would allow her to be detained against her will.

It's been reported her family are travelling from Australia to Ireland.

A relative who Ms Azzopardi had been staying with in Tipperary before she was found on a Dublin street in a distressed state on October 10 has appealed for privacy.

"He requests that the media respect his privacy and that of his family," lawyers acting on his behalf said in a statement.

A SHADOWY PAST

Meanwhile, a complex picture has emerged of the troubled 25-year-old Australian woman who was found wandering in a distressed and disoriented state on an Ireland street.

A former boss has described Ms Azzopardi as a "sweet girl" but a misfit who left her job as a waitress in a southwest Sydney restaurant to travel the world.

Initial fears that she was an Eastern European teenage sex slave were yesterday dismissed by police, but it was revealed she has a history of forgery convictions and is alleged to have up to 40 aliases.

Court documents reveal she was known to Queensland police and convicted on two occasions in 2010.

On September 15 that year, in the Brisbane Magistrates Court, she was convicted on two charges of making false representations, one charge of possession of a thing with intent to forge documents and one charge of contravening directions.

If she reoffended in the following 12 months she would have been fined $500.

Less than a month later, on October 11, she was convicted of a further false representation offences.

At the time, her address was listed as Douglas Park, NSW.

Her former boss at the Pancakes on the Rocks restaurant at Campbelltown, Chris Nunes, said she recognised Ms Azzopardi as her former employee when Irish police released pictures of her as part of a global appeal to identify the young woman.

Pancakes on The Rocks, where Samantha Azzopardi previously worked.Source:News Limited

Ms Nunes said Ms Azzopardi was a "very sweet girl" but did not fit in with her peers.

During the three to five months working part-time at the restaurant in a small business precinct, Ms Azzopardi sometimes failed to turn up for her shifts and kept mostly to herself.

"Sammy was a nice girl," Ms Nunes said.

"I think she was late for her shifts a few times or didn't turn up a couple of times. I think we were quite glad when she left.

"She just didn't fit in here. Just somehow she didn't fit in (and) didn't really become friends with any of the girls.

"She just seemed different to everybody else.

"I don't remember exactly why I felt like that. Nothing stood out to make her a problem. It's just she didn't fit in and didn't click with the job."

Ms Nunes said she hired Ms Azzopardi after being asked by her aunt who was looking for work to provide "something sort of structured" for her niece.

She was a "very plain Jane sort of girl" with no distinguishing features that set her apart from the other girls, Ms Nunes said.

Ms Azzopardi always wore an impish smile and was an efficient waitress.

"She seemed to be quite happy here and she was trying," Ms Nunes said.

During one of her final shifts at the restaurant, which is across the road from a nursing home where it is believed her grandmother lives, Ms Azzopardi told her boss she was "going to travel the world to donate a kidney".

"I just said 'that's nice'," Ms Nunes said.

"She didn't do that (tell stories) too often but I just thought that was a very strange way to leave."

Ms Azzopardi is believed to have studied at the nearby Mount Annan High School.

She had been staying with a relative in Tipperary up to the day she was discovered by in Dublin, the Irish Times said.